Steve Johnson on Product Management

More notes from another Business of Software 2008 lecture by Steve Johnson from Pragmatic Marketing. He talks about what product managers' role is, what they actually end up doing, and what they need to do, in order to be meaningful representatives of the actual product's users.

• Companies tend to start off as technology-driven, then become sales-driven (each new sale requires custom development), then become marketing-driven (lots of money spent on their brand image).
• Then they cut costs, and go full circle to technology-driven, and repeat the cycle. Good product management can help to break this cycle.
• Illustration of how wills are only executed: you are already dead when the will gets to court. So the document needs to be long enough to deal with all possible arguments.
• Application specifications have the advantage that the specifier is normally still alive when the development teams come to implement them!
• But we keep writing specification documents (product requirements, marketing requirements, functional specifications...) in order to cover all managers' worries/requests.
• The right answer is not to create more artefacts. Tightening your grip will mean more slips through your fingers. Instead it's to have someone who really understands what's needed, and can back up their assertions with evidence.
• Many companies are like Star Trek (original series): Spock (development) logical, trying to be human. Bones (marketing) upset about what he hasn't got, or what he's being asked to work with. Kirk (sales) always committing the ship to more than it can do. Scotty (product manager/sales engineer) lies to Kirk at all times, then says "OK, let's go!".
• Agile development crowd wants to improve these development/specification processes by having a customer representative on hand to try out each iteration on.
• Problem: most of us don't program for individuals. We program for multiple customers!
• Agile/Scrum methods seem to make us more introspective. We spend so long in development team meetings that the product manager does not go out and talk to the customers!
• Sales don't tend to understand why some of their development requests are not possible. An interesting idea is to turn this round and ask similarly unrealistic questions to sales. Example: "Why can't you give me a well-defined feature set by a guaranteed date?" is replied to with "Can you tell me what hour of the day and the exact amount that you're going to close this contract for?"
• In many cases, the only people who talk to customers are technical support. But are they talking to all of our users? (Hopefully not!) They're only talking to the people with problems, and not even all of them. What comes out of this? "Remember the 'L' in (L)user is silent". "Losers" are those who you have to teach basic computing to. "Power Losers" are those who are trying to use your product in ways that you never intended. But you can't just try to market to "smarter" users!
• Biggest contribution that a product manager can make is to be representative of users. That means the PM has to leave the building, and talk with users, and potential users!
• Causing customers to switch is one target, but selling to potential customers is hugely important.
• Three groups: current customers, evaluators (people currently shopping: only sales talk to them. If they don't buy, then product management analyses why), and the untapped potential market. The last group is very important.
• Customers tell us what new features they want, but potentials tell us what would convince them to buy. Get evidence for what features are really asked for by customers. That helps choose which of the many ideas that come out of our company are to be implemented.
• Development and Sales have different views of product managers should do. Sales tend to want people who can demo/explain the product. This is probably best done by sales engineers. (See Steve's post on sales people as order takers.)
• Work out what areas of the business that are thought of as product management are not actually officially assigned to someone at your company: they will be happening, but are they happening well, or "just being done"?
• Jargon: Inbound marketing is understanding what customers want the development team to do (product management). Outbound marketing is about actually selling the product (product marketing manager).
• The product management triad: executive direction, marketing, and technical management. All require different skills. May end up splitting into three separate roles.
• Sales people tend to think one deal at a time, which is as needed. But when sales comes back with a new idea, put it in the list of possible new features, but wait and see how many people actually want it, rather than just the one deal that that salesperson is currently progressing.

To me, it's interesting how broad the role of product management can be. It's also a salutory reminder that when two companies recruit for a position with the same name, it might well be for totally different roles...

If You Get a Little Better at Sales, You'll Be Way Ahead of the Market

In my dealings with fellow Computer Scientists, I've noticed that many don't see the point of sales and marketing. Instead, they focus on technology. That is not to say that they are all totally unaware of sales/marketing, but if they do see the point, they see it as someone else's task, definitely not one for them to get involved in. In another excellent presentation from the Business of Software 2008 conference, Paul Kenny (of Ocean Learning) talks about how to be a better salesperson. Crucially, he dispels many of the myths that technical people hold about the role, addressing those in startups in particular. Here's the video, with my notes below it.

• If you have a bad opinion of salespeople, it's likely to be because you have experienced the "bad apples", rather than sales being a terrible thing in principle.
  
• Myths
  
• Products "sell themselves". (False, though great products can sell themselves to an extent.)
• Our customers "don't like being sold to". (Actually, they don't like being sold to badly!)
• Techies don't "get" sales people. (Not true! You sell to VCs, to your friends/family supporters, to your first employees.)
  
• How many of the people who, say, view your marketing video, call you for a demonstration? If it's only 5% (likely!) then you need a person to follow up: normally it's not something wrong with the product that stops someone buying it; it's other things getting in the way.
• The people who have the need for your product are probably not the people with the money. You need a salesperson to go and talk to the people higher up, to make them feel the need.
• Talk about specific uses/users, not the science/how the product works. If you can convince your buyer that a user they know personally will benefit from it, that is a powerful sell.
• Users have "needs behind needs". People will tell you that the reason they buy an SUV is because they like the 4WD or stability. In practice they actually like SUVs because they make their families safer when driving, or for the feeling they get when they are able to look down on other drivers.
• Be prepared to go one-to-one with customers to understand their particular situations and what features they will use.
• Sales are very dependent on the emotional impact of your product. You need to position your product in people's minds. Trade-off between perceived cost and perceived value. Note that it's perception that matters, which can be managed by a salesperson.
• If you want a salesperson, don't recruit a stereotype! Start with what you need them to do: fast response (cheap product), or in-depth service (expensive product, high risk for client). They require different skills.
• What is your company culture? Will the salesperson you are recruiting exude that culture? Don't stitch customers up.
  
• Don't worry about admitting that your product isn't suitable for a customer's needs; they will remember you, as you'll probably be the first person who was honest with them in that way.
• Don't hire experience, hire attitude first (then experience!). You can't train attitude into someone. If a candidate hasn't researched your company much at all, or is lax in some things, don't hire them: they will be the same about your customers.
• Skills: self-starting/self-motivated, intelligent in questioning/listening, sounds/looks like they mean it, can deal with resistance, persistent.
• Sales take huge amounts of energy: have a dedicated person, rather than combining with other jobs. If you can, have more than one salesperson to spread the load, and motivate each other.
• If you have no dedicated person, and all of you in the company do some sales, come together and do it at the same time.
  
• Don't just reward deals: that will result in salespeople who don't care about the customer. Instead, reward contact with customers, and show interest in those skills.
• Sales can be boring: how can you vary your salesperson's job, on a regular basis?
• Train your salespeople regularly. They will go off the boil otherwise.
• For high-value salespeople, bonus them over 6-12 months, as such sales take a long time. Low value sales are different, probably bonus over short term.
  

Ultimately, show your salespeople that they are hugely important to you, motivate them, and ensure that they develop relationships with customers.